


Remembrance Day

by Mireille



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-17
Updated: 2005-07-17
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: On the anniversary of the day the war ended, they met at the pub... as they always did, and Charlie noticed again that Bill was getting old.





	Remembrance Day

**Author's Note:**

> This was written just before Half-Blood Prince came out, and posted as a birthday present after HBP was released, but before the birthday girl had a chance to read the new book. So it's only compliant with canon up through OotP.

On the anniversary of the day the war ended, they met at the pub that had replaced the Three Broomsticks--down the road, as no one had wanted to drink in a building with quite that many ghosts--as they always did, and Charlie noticed again that Bill was getting old. There was still a hint of dark red amid the silver of Bill's ponytail, but only a hint, and there were lines around Bill's eyes and mouth.   
  
He'd been old for years, himself, but that was different. He saw himself in the mirror every morning; he'd had time to get used to it. But to Charlie, Bill was going to forever be twenty-five, and the reality was jarring.   
  
Not bad. Not at all bad, considering that Charlie had brothers who would never grow old. But jarring.   
  
They got the trivialities out of the way first: news of old friends; talk of work; sharing of bits of gossip from Ginny's last owl to Charlie and the last time Ron had dinner at Bill's; the perennial grumbling about one of Bill's sons-in-law. Bill brought out a picture of his youngest grandchild, who giggled and reached for the camera and tugged at the unseen photographer's sleeve, and Charlie studied the picture for a moment before saying, "She looks like Mum, doesn't she?"  
  
That was the signal, this year, for them to start drinking the toasts, and if they named  _every_  name of someone they'd cared for and lost, they'd have been far too drunk to stand at the end of it. Their parents first, of course, and their brothers, their friends, people whose faces they could hardly remember.   
  
And, just like every other year, then came the quiet, while Bill studied his butterbeer and Charlie studied Bill's face, trying to store it up for another year. He got out of the habit of visiting Bill decades ago; it made his wife nervous, Bill had said after the first time Charlie had visited after the wedding, and didn't say why.   
  
Charlie knew why. Bill talked entirely too much when he'd had a bit to drink, and Charlie remembered how much champagne there had been at Bill's wedding. She'd never said, and Bill had never said; no one ever said anything, except Charlie one horrible night when he'd been twenty-three and expecting to die and had said the one thing he'd promised himself he'd never tell anyone, not even Bill. Especially not Bill.   
  
But he'd stopped visiting except on the rare occasions when all the remaining Weasleys gathered, and even when his sister-in-law had died five years ago, he hadn't started again. It made things easier, he told himself, and didn't admit that he was afraid. So every year, Charlie tried to memorize his face, his voice, his mannerisms, comparing the changes age had wrought with the image of Bill he had in his mind, storing up fragments of Bill to keep for another year.  
  
Just as they did every year, they sat in the pub for hours. After a while, the conversation started flowing again, and just as he did every year, Bill said, "I hate thinking of you going back to Romania alone."  
  
"I'm used to it," Charlie pointed out. "And I'm hardly alone. There's a permanent staff of seventy-five at the reservation now, and that doesn't count the apprentices."  
  
"You know what I mean. You could have got married, had a family...."   
  
Every other year, Charlie shrugged, knowing that it was the hour and the alcohol that made Bill so thoughtless, but this year, he couldn't. He was too tired of shrugging and forgetting and pretending he'd never said anything. Instead, he looked Bill straight in the eye and said, "No, I couldn't. You know I couldn't."   
  
Bill could, because Bill could be genuinely happy with something less than exactly what he wanted, but Charlie couldn't. It was why he was still working on the reservation in Romania, when there were less strenuous and better-paying jobs that would have been his for the asking.   
  
He waited for Bill's awkward apology, the one that came every year, the one that meant it was time for Charlie to go upstairs to the room he'd taken for the night, so that he could Apparate home rested and sober, and for Bill to walk back to the house he'd bought in Hogsmeade when Gringotts had transferred him back to Britain.  
  
This year, Charlie heard Bill saying the same thing he'd said all those years ago, the last time he'd directly acknowledged any of what Charlie had confessed that night. "Charlie, we can't."  
  
"I know," he said, fishing out a few galleons from his pocket as he stood and dropping them on the table.   
  
He was halfway to the stairs when he heard Bill's voice again, just behind him. "Can we?"  
  
He hadn't heard Bill following him, but he tried to hide his surprise. "We shouldn't," he admitted, because he'd known that just as well as Bill had.   
  
"Can you forgive me?" They were on the stairs now, Bill still at Charlie's heels, and Charlie turned around, shaking his head.   
  
"No need. I never blamed you."  
  
Bill's smile made him look almost like the young man Charlie remembered, and Charlie had to smile back.   
  
And this year, when Charlie went up to his room, he didn't go alone.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
